Acclaimed illustrator and author Jeanette Winter, a pioneer of picture book biographies and nonfiction, many of which focused on brave women fighting for social justice, died November 7 in New York City of heart and kidney failure. She was 86.
Winter was born October 6, 1939, in Chicago, the only child of Swedish immigrants Signe and John Ragner, and grew up in the Windy City. She showed a passion for drawing and painting from an early age and as a child liked nothing better than creating pictures and telling stories, something she imagined doing professionally one day. “I always wanted to be an artist, but I had no role models,” she told A Mighty Girl in 2013. “So, I stumbled along in the dark, hoping my dream would somehow become true.”
During high school Winter moved closer to realizing her dream by taking classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. She studied painting at the University of Iowa, where she earned her B.F.A. in 1960. That same year, she married contemporary visual artist Roger Winter, who had simultaneously completed his M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. Soon after, the couple moved to New York City where Jeanette worked in the New York Public Library’s main branch on Fifth Avenue, and Roger worked in the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza. Following their move to Fort Worth, Tex. in 1961, the Winters welcomed two sons, children’s book author and poet Jonah, and poet and film critic Max.
Winter continued to pursue her illustration goals as her family grew, but developing true bookmaking skills was still a challenge. “The university didn’t have illustration classes, so I tried to teach myself,” she told PW in 1998. Her efforts began to pay off with the publication of her first book, The Christmas Visitors (Knopf, 1968), her self-illustrated retelling of a Norwegian folktale. She continued to hone her skills with additional fairy and folktale retellings as well as by illustrating stories by other authors.
But in 1988, she published her first self-illustrated original story, Follow the Drinking Gourd (Knopf). That picture book, in which a sailor teaches a group of slaves a song about following the drinking gourd (the Big Dipper) in the sky enabling them to make their escape via the Underground Railroad, marked a turning point in Winter’s career, she told PW. “I gave up line,” she said. “That’s when color took over.” She refined her signature style of layering simple shapes in a vivid palette to create varied perspectives and scenes that have a folk-art feel. And she established her own rhythm of going directly to painting her illustrations instead of drawing them first.
She often found inspiration for her book subjects in newspaper articles and events that sparked her interest. “I have to see the pictures right away,” Winter said in an interview for Patricia Newman’s website. “When I do, I get very excited.” She was moved to create September Roses (FSG, 2004) in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks; a New York Times article compelled her to create The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq (Harcourt, 2004); and an internet video of a hippo who thought its mother was a tortoise inspired her book Mama (Harcourt, 2006).
Into her late 70s she was working on multiple concurrent book projects even as difficulties caused by arthritis prompted her to pivot from working with a paintbrush at a drawing table and begin creating digital art. In 2020, Winter provided a series of original texts and images expressing her love of books for an exhibition at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair called “A Universe of Stories. Starring: The Book.” She included this poem:
A LITTLE BOOK
We are Big— a book is little…..
then the book opens a door to the whole world —
and we become little…
the book encompasses
EVERYTHING.
In all, Winter created more than 65 books for young readers. Her work was frequently lauded by such educational organizations as Bank Street College of Education, IRA/CBC, and NCTE, and she is widely credited with helping to establish what is now a robust picture book nonfiction category. In 1991 she collaborated with her son Jonah Winter to illustrate Diego (Knopf), a biography of Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. It was the first of several projects mother and son completed together, and it was named a New York Times Best Illustrated Book. Among Winter’s many other distinctive works are My Name Is Georgia (Silver Whistle, 1998); Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan (Beach Lane, 2009); and Our House Is on Fire: Greta Thunberg’s Call to Save the Planet (Beach Lane, 2019), which has been translated into 21 languages to date.
Jonah Winter paid tribute to his mother’s creative talents in a 2018 essay nominating her for the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature. “Jeanette Winter’s books are passionately moral, without being the slightest bit preachy,” he wrote. “They are emotional, without being the slightest bit sentimental. They address the power of courageous individuals acting in defiance of outrageous odds to create a more just and beautiful world.... Her books are simple in the best sense of the word. They reduce important true stories down to their most essential facts. They reflect the presence of a clear mind—and a lifetime of refining and honing her skills as a master storyteller and illustrator. They represent a perfect marriage of literary and artistic style.”
Allyn Johnston, VP and publisher of the Beach Lane Books imprint at Simon & Schuster Children’s Books and Winter’s longtime editor, recalled their close partnership. “Jeanette Winter was bold and fierce and yes, stubborn, and she was a visionary. I didn’t know these things about her initially, but I had long admired her work from afar, and our shared love of Mexican folk art finally brought us together with her 1996 book, Josefina, about renowned clay sculptor Josefina Aguilar. We went on to do 25 more books together on real-world topics as wide-ranging as the Day of the Dead, a librarian heroine in Basra, the Williams sisters, a New York hawk called Pale Male, Henri Matisse, Sister Corita Kent, and a traveling burro library in Colombia.
Soon after our first project together, Jeanette stopped doing sketch dummies. She felt that they took the spontaneity out of her pictures. So she would write and illustrate a whole book, and when she was done, a package would arrive with a manuscript and all of the gorgeous finished art inside. Inevitably, though, one image or another would not quite be working, and I would have to ask for revisions. This did not always go well because she had very strong feelings about what she had made, and because I often did not address the situation in a timely enough manner—eek. But eventually, book after book, year after year, we would push through our frustrations with each other—and figure it out together. Jeanette was a true activist at heart, and it was one of my great privileges as an editor to be a longstanding part of her incredible bookmaking life.”
Ann Bobco, former executive art director at Simon & Schuster Children’s Books, worked closely with Winter on numerous projects and offered these words: “To my mind Jeanette was a visionary. She quite often had her fingers on the pulse of what was pertinent in the moment. She loved art and artists; worried about animals, the environment, and political issues—both of the moment as well as historical ones; she championed brave young, as well as older, women.”
And Judythe Sieck, former creative director of children’s books at Harcourt Brace, shared this remembrance: “Having designed numerous books with Jeanette over many years, I have to say that I am so fortunate to have worked with her and then to become a true and close friend with her and her husband Roger.
I first fell in love with Jeanette’s work when I helped her design Tortilla Cat. We recognized we had a similar if somewhat eccentric color sense. Next, I worked on My Name Is Georgia about Georgia O’Keeffe. As a designer, I received the originals, each piece carefully protected in a plastic envelope. I had the text next to them and read as I moved along. When I got to the end, I literally wept.
Jeanette’s artwork and writing often spoke on other levels than the obvious and moved me to the quick. Her work was never ‘cutesy’ and came from her heart. My sadness at losing her physical presence, her wisdom, laughter, talent, and imagination knows no bounds.”
